Essential Tips to Protect Your Home from Flooding
Are you wondering if your area is safe from flooding? Or unfortunately, do you already know that it is not and are searching for accessible ways to protect your home? The solution is flooding prevention and home maintenance.
What is a flood?
A flood is the accumulation of water over commonly dry areas. It can be caused by the accumulation of water from heavy rains, or by the overflow of inland waters, like rivers, or tidal waters.
We can’t speak about flooding risk without mentioning climate change, and how it has influenced most of the water-related factors that contribute to floods, such as rainfall and snowmelt. The 3 most notable consequences are:
- heavier precipitation
- more frequent hurricanes
- higher seas
Now, let’s dive deep into the topic and see what you can do to protect your house.
Assess the risk of flooding
Determining the risk of flooding in your area and how water flows around your house is crucial to prevent possible damage.
Understanding your home’s flood risk begins with looking at the position of your home to assess its elevation from street level, and where water flows and accumulates during a heavy rainstorm.
It’s also possible to find online flood maps, specific to your area. These maps usually represent the flood risk with different colors, going from low-risk to high-risk, and are easy to consult.
It’s interesting to note how areas that were once risky can be changed and improved in different ways to reduce the flooding risk. An impressive example is the G Ross Lord Park in North York, Toronto, which was created to protect nearby homes from flooding. Now the park, thanks to preservation, enhancement and revegetation, is also an important conservation area.
10 Essential tips to protect your home from flooding
- Regularly check your foundation for cracks and holes.
As a preventive step, it’s important to ensure that your house stands on solid foundations. In this way, water can’t enter the house through the gaps.
- Set-up foundation vents or a sump pump
As a wet flood-proofing method, these facilities are helpful to let water flow instead of accumulating and to pump water out of basements where flooding happens on a regular basis.
- Revise and adjust your water valves
It’s recommended to use gate valves, which can open automatically to let water flow out, and close to prevent water from coming in. They are more complex than common valves but also more efficient.
- Install water sensors to detect rising water
Water sensors give an early warning when water starts rising, and have more time to take all the actions you need.
- Clean your gutters regularly, and keep them clear of debris
It’s essential to prevent stagnation and accumulation of water, especially after the autumn season, when they can be clogged by leaves.
- Make sure in-home electrical and climate systems are safe
All electrical systems and outlets should be a foot or more above the typical flood level in your area. For example, you can raise electrical sockets to above 5 ft.
- Reinforce the house with insulation, coatings and sealants
As a dry flood-proofing, you can apply coatings and sealants to foundations, walls, and also windows, and doors. Sealants prevent water from entering the house through the gaps.
It’s important to know that nowadays this can be done with sustainable materials, and depending on your area, these materials can be also locally sourced, reducing their environmental impact.
For insulation, use cork, flax, hemp, wool, cellulose fibers, or algae. Other examples are vegetable oil-based eco-friendly coating materials and many of the eco-friendlier paints and sealants that contain low to zero amounts of toxic volatile organic compounds (VOCs).
- Keep handy removable barriers on doors and windows
As a flood resistance method, this helps prevent water from getting into the house with equipment that can be easily placed and removed.
- Replace easily-damaged materials with waterproof ones
As a flood resilience method, this helps ensure lower damage to floors, furniture, windows, and doors.
- Raise your house on stilts or piers
This is a crucial step you can take if you are building your house in a well-known high-risk flooding area, but it can be really expensive if done afterward. Raising the house above flood level will protect it from damages.
Extra tips: Take preventive steps when flooding starts
- Clear gutters, drains, and downspouts
Even if flooding has already started, clearing gutters and drains helps when you notice a possible flooding danger. In this way, water can flow freely.
- Place items that are likely to be easily damaged away from the ground floor and basement
Move furniture, rugs, electronics and other important things to upper floors, or at least raise them off the ground floor. You can use some spare bricks, blocks or wooden pallets to do that.
- Shut off electricity at the breaker panel
In this case, it’s useful to have an emergency power supply, so you can still use pumps and vents to keep water away.
- Elevate major appliances onto concrete blocks
If air conditioning units, washing machines, dryers and generators are in danger of being flooded move them up to avoid damages or an electricity blackout.
- Use sandbags to block any gaps that will lead to flooding
Despite all the measures you might have taken, there still can be some gaps through which water can enter the house. Once you have identified them, use sandbags to plug them.
Final thoughts
If you're looking for ways to upgrade your house’s safety against flooding, these tips are a great place to start. You will be able to live in your home peacefully without fearing the flood risk.
In addition, this could also make a great difference in your house conditions, thanks to maintenance. Maybe this could help you pursue those annoying maintenance tasks you usually avoid. Investing some time, resources and money into these improvements is one of the best ways to take care of your home, whether it is a small project or a major overhaul.
Author bio
Alice Ibba has graduated in Architecture and is working as a freelancer, combining her passions for interior design, holistic wellness, sustainability, psychology, and graphic design. She defines herself as a multipotentialite. You can get in touch with her on LinkedIn.
